- OpenAI bans Russian ChatGPT accounts used in covert misinformation campaign
Source: CNBC
“OpenAI has banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts originating in Russia that it said were being used to support a covert online influence campaign to spread misinformation. The company discovered the issue after investigating AI-generated social media posts, which led it to a ‘much broader influence operation,’ OpenAI said in a blog post on Tuesday. The campaign was ‘built around a website containing copied and misattributed academic work, a ‘sovereignty’ index that cast Russia in a favourable light, and efforts to disguise the operators’ Russian origins,’ the company added. It’s the latest incident of pro-Russia actors using AI to spread misinformation. OpenAI does not allow access to its models in Russia, but the company said VPNs were used to disguise location.” (08/25/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/25/openai-russia-chatgpt-influence-campaign.html
- Trump says all mines cleared from Strait of Hormuz
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“US President Donald Trump has said that the US Navy has removed or detonated all mines in the Strait of Hormuz – the vital waterway which Iran has largely closed since the beginning of the war in the Middle East. ‘Iran has been notified that any ship or boat placing new mines will be immediately and systematically destroyed,’ Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. There is no comment from Iran. Closure of the strait has caused wild fluctuations in the price of oil on world markets. Trump has often said the US has control of the area – but Iran has fired against vessels it says have sought to cross without its permission. Some 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas used to transit the Strait of Hormuz before the war, which began on 28 February with US and Israeli air strikes against Iran.” (08/25/26)
- Hottest ocean temperature recorded as “super” El Nino forms
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“Scientists have recorded the highest temperature ever measured in the world’s oceans, as climate change combines with a powerful El Nino in the tropical Pacific. The global average sea-surface temperature hit a record 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 Fahrenheit) on August 22, according to Europe’s Earth observation agency Copernicus, which has been tracking the metric daily since 1979. The previous single-day record of 21.09 degrees was measured in March 2024. … The August record is particularly worrying because global ocean temperatures are typically highest in March and April, after the Austral summer, Copernicus said.” (08/25/26)
- Federal judge rejects Maxwell “miscarriage of justice” claims and bid for prison release
Source: SFGate
“Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and be freed from prison was rejected by a federal judge Tuesday who said the claims by Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate that new evidence had emerged were ‘demonstrably meritless’. Maxwell filed a habeas petition last December seeking to set aside her conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, claiming exonerating information was withheld and false testimony presented at her trial, resulting in a ‘complete miscarriage of justice’. Judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected her arguments, saying in his written ruling that ‘all or almost all are frivolous’ and that she had presented nothing that could upend the outcome of her trial.” (08/25/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/federal-judge-rejects-ghislaine-maxwell-s-22402526.php
- Senile Reality TV Star Floats Renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America”
Source: US News & World Report
“President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is considering changing the name of Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’ as the trade war between the United States and Canada intensifies. Such a change would be reminiscent of the Republican president’s unilateral action last year by executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The United States and Canada are locked in a trade dispute, with Canada expected to announce retaliatory measures Tuesday. That’s in response to the Trump administration enacting 50% tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. ‘The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer,’ Trump said Tuesday on social media.” (08/25/26)
- Report: CIA Director John Ratcliffe secretly traveled to Russia, as mystery swirls over military flight landing in Moscow
Source: New York Post
“CIA Director John Ratcliffe is visiting Moscow Tuesday, according to reports — after a mysterious military flight landed in the Russian capital. Ratcliffe arrived aboard a C-17 transport plane that departed Joint Base Andrews, a base outside Washington used for high-ranking official travel. The plane stopped in Latvia en route to Moscow, with the Pentagon and White House initially declining to comment on who was aboard. CBS News and Axios reported that it was Ratcliffe who made the trip.” (08/25/26)
- Rohingya refugees rally in Bangladesh camps to demand safe return to Myanmar
Source: SFGate
“Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in dozens of camps in Bangladesh held a rally Tuesday to demand their safe return to their home state, nine years after they fled a government crackdown. The demonstrators urged the international community to ensure security in Rakhine state as they marked what they call the ‘Ninth Anniversary of Rohingya Genocide Day’. More than 1 million refugees from Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic and religious minority now live in the sprawling camps around the Cox’s Bazar district of southeastern Bangladesh. Most of them fled across the border in a mass exodus in 2017 after Buddhist-majority Myanmar launched a crackdown in Rakhine, following an attack by a Rohingya Muslim insurgent group. The Bangladesh government earlier attempted to start the repatriation at least twice, but it did not work out as none of the refugees was willing to go back, citing security concerns. Bangladesh says it will not force anyone to return.” (08/25/26)
- NYC: Grocers sue over Mamdani’s communist grocery plan
Source: United Press International
“A group of grocers filed two lawsuits Monday over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to open five city-run grocery stores, saying it would harm neighborhood supermarkets. The Multicultural Business Coalition, an organization that says it represents owners of smaller stores, said in the filings that the city would violate business owners’ civil rights if the new stores open and that officials did not study how the planned stores would affect existing businesses. … The plan for city-owned grocery stores, which would sell some items at a 30% discount, was part of Mamdani’s platform as he ran for mayor. It calls for five stores, one in each borough of New York City, to open by 2029.” (08/24/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/08/24/group-sues-over-NYC-grocery-plan/3061787598336/
- Lawmakers, Groups Demand Rubio Secure Release of Sama Safi From Israeli Detention
Source: Common Dreams
“Dozens of US lawmakers came together on Tuesday to demand the immediate release of Sama Safi, a 20-year-old American psychology student with ‘a severe complex chronic health condition’ who was ‘arbitrarily and wrongfully detained’ by the Israeli military nearly three months ago. Safi was abducted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on June 2 as ‘part of a series of raids targeting Birzeit University students that morning that wrongfully detained three other young women: Natalie Abu Diah, Leila Khalil, and Joulan Abu Awad,’ the members of Congress wrote to President Donald Trump’s top diplomat. ‘This targeting of Palestinian students is not an isolated incident but part of what United Nations human rights experts have called a systematic policy to ‘undermine the right to education’.'” (08/25/26)
- Haiti: Gangs kill at least 47 people in attack near capital
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“At least 47 people were killed and 22 more injured in an overnight gang raid on a neighborhood overlooking Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, the UN said on Monday, prompting anger over the lack of protection from repeated deadly attacks. The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti said estimates could still change. The hillside community of Kenscoff, in a strategic position overlooking routes into the capital, has suffered a dozen attacks by armed gangs since last year, forcing thousands to flee their homes.” (08/25/26)
- FBI sets $25,000 minimum reward for dozens of unsolved Indian Country cases
Source: SFGate
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has established a minimum reward of $25,000 in cases where people went missing or were killed in Indian Country, part of a broader effort to address high rates of violence affecting Native American communities. The new minimum applies to more than 50 unsolved homicides and missing-person cases in tribal communities. Most of the cases are less than 10 years old, though a dozen have been unsolved for more than two decades, an AP analysis found. Victims’ families and experts are unsure the higher amounts will be enough to get tipsters to come forward, citing people’s fears and distrust of the federal government. … The FBI investigates federal crimes on nearly 200 Native American reservations, along with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.” (08/25/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/fbi-sets-25-000-minimum-reward-for-dozens-of-22402115.php
- Block Bits Founder Guilty After $960k Crypto Bot Pitch Implodes
Source: Bitcoin.com
“A federal jury convicted Block Bits co-founder Japheth Dillman on five fraud-related counts after prosecutors showed how nearly $1 million flowed from investors into a cryptocurrency trading operation built around an automated system that never existed. … Dillman and co-founder David Mata pulled in about $960,000 from roughly 22 retail investors between June 2017 and August 2018. The sales pitch was specific: Block Bits Fund I supposedly ran a proprietary bot trading about 100 digital assets across more than 30 exchanges and harvesting price differences between them. That machine was the heart of the pitch, and prosecutors said it simply was not there. The SEC alleged Block Bits’ actual trading amounted to Mata manually placing trades through an exchange account.” (08/24/26)
- Russia: Regime to seize poorly protected infrastructure amid Ukraine drone attacks
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree opening the way for the Russian state to take temporary control of critical infrastructure found to be inadequately protected from attack. The decree, published on Monday, would allow Moscow to strip owners of physical and financial control over facilities should it be determined that they are failing to secure them or repair damage quickly. The move comes as Ukraine maintains an intense drone campaign against Russian infrastructure. … Fuel and energy facilities, including nuclear power, are included under the legislation as well as industry, communications, transport and logistics, public utilities and other facilities deemed essential to state security and economic stability.” (08/24/26)
- SCOTUS rules blue states sued too early over Trump’s postal election rigging scheme
Source: The Hill
“The Supreme Court lifted a judge’s block on President Trump’s executive order adding to mail voting requirements, removing a key roadblock that prevented the policy from going into effect for the midterms. Over the public dissents of the three liberal justices, the high court said Monday that the judge had no authority to block Trump’s directive ahead of the U.S. Postal Service implementing the new ballot standards. ‘Federal courts review final rules, not proposed rules—and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule. If the Postal Service’s final rule harms the States, they may challenge that rule,’ the court wrote. It allows Trump to move closer to implementing his mail ballot restrictions for November’s contests. But now that the Postal Service announced its final regulation late last week, the states had already begun their new push to block it.” (08/24/26)
- Judge postpones trial for man charged in Lockerbie bombing over “new evidence”
Source: AOL
“The US trial of a former Libyan intelligence operative accused over the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing has been delayed after fresh evidence came to light, a federal judge ruled on Monday. Defence attorneys requested time to review the material in the case, which spans nearly four decades. Jury selection was due to start on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., for Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, in what will be the first trial held in the US regarding the attack on 21 December 1988. An order issued by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich did not elaborate on the nature of the newly revealed details. … Al-Marimi is charged in the US with building the bomb that destroyed the aircraft, killing 270 people, mostly Americans.” (08/25/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/judge-postpones-trial-man-charged-055831000.html
- UK: Iran-linked hackers suspected in power plant shutdown
Source: Fox News
“Iran-linked hackers are suspected of forcing a small British power generator offline for four days last month, the latest sign that Tehran-linked cyber activity may be moving from probing vulnerable systems to causing disruptions U.S. officials have long warned about. Iran-linked hackers were behind the outage, according to British security officials who spoke with multiple news outlets. … The British shutdown came weeks after hackers struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota, accessing technology used to remotely monitor and control pumps and other equipment. Minnesota officials have not publicly attributed the attacks. Several news outlets, citing U.S. officials and a leaked industry threat-sharing memo, reported that Iran was the likely culprit.” (08/24/26)
- MA: Lindsay Clancy trial judge denies mistrial request, but reprimands prosecution over witness testimony about religion
Source: CBS News
“Lindsay Clancy trial testimony ended abruptly Monday in Plymouth Superior Court when a witness began speaking about Catholic religion and the defense called for a mistrial. Judge William Sullivan denied the mistrial request, but reprimanded the prosecution and sent jurors home for the day. Dr. Kirk Heilbrun was the second witness of the day, and in the afternoon he spoke about a conversation he had with Clancy in April. ‘That was part of her expectation was that she and her children would be together in heaven with God.’ … Sullivan then sent jurors out of the room, and there was a brief recess. When Sullivan and the attorneys returned, the defense called for a mistrial. … When the jury was called back in, the judge told jurors the remarks were ‘immaterial, irrelevant and to be disregarded.'” [editor’s note: If Clancy’s “state of mind” was relevant to the testimony, why would reference to religious conversation be “immaterial?” – TLK] (08/24/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/lindsay-clancy-trial-watch-live-day-19-rebuttal/
- US regime publicly confesses to two more maritime murders
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“US forces have struck another vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, [murdering] two people accused of trafficking drugs, the US military said on Monday, in the first attack announced in about two months. The death toll in the nearly year-long US campaign of bombing boats allegedly trafficking drugs now exceeds 210 after more than 60 strikes off Latin America’s Caribbean coast and in the eastern Pacific Ocean. … US President Donald Trump has said the US is in ‘armed conflict’ with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of [murdering] ‘narcoterrorists.'” (08/24/26)
- Bitcoin Surges On Treasury Game-Changer; Strategy Raises $2 Billion
Source: Investor’s Business Daily
“The bitcoin price continued its recent surge on Monday, touching a two-month high on news that the Treasury Department might conduct its own version of quantitative easing using its nearly $1 trillion general account. The rally got cooking with a burst of short-covering last Wednesday, when Treasury announced that it would at least double buybacks of long-term government bonds to stem a big rise in 10- and 30-year Treasury yields. … Strategy (MSTR) took advantage of last week’s favorable conditions for bitcoin and the cryptosphere to issue 18.26 million shares of MSTR stock, raising just over $2 billion in cash.” (08/24/26)
https://www.investors.com/news/bitcoin-price-bessent-treasury-general-account-strategy/
- Trump regime proposes $103,000 fee for H-1B visas after legal setback
Source: Washington Post
“The Trump administration plans to charge employers seeking skilled foreign workers through the H-1B visa program a $103,265 fee, a proposed regulation posted on Monday said. Revenue from the fee would be used to run the legal immigration system, the document said, including funding for federal immigration courts and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. President Donald Trump’s administration argues that the H-1B program has been used to take jobs away from Americans and that the current system fails to prioritize the most exceptional foreign workers. Trump tried to implement a similar $100,000 fee last year through a presidential proclamation, but it was invalidated by a federal judge in June.” (08/24/26)
- John Roberts Biggest Con Man in US Politics
Source: The Progressive
by Bill Blum“There is no bigger con man in the United States than Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Not even President Donald J. Trump. The con began in September 2005, during Roberts’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Articulate, handsome, and energetic at 50 years old, Roberts seemed to have been culled ‘straight from central casting’ …. Roberts was also convincing—he famously promised that if confirmed, he would serve in the fashion of a baseball umpire, calling only ‘balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat’. Seventy-eight senators, including 22 Democrats, fell for the ploy and voted to give him the lifetime assignment. The biggest yarn Roberts told during his hearing concerned his views on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), a cornerstone of American democracy, which the Supreme Court gutted this past April in a redistricting case from the state of Louisiana (Louisiana v. Callais).” (08/25/26)
https://progressive.org/magazine/the-long-con-of-john-roberts-blum-20260821/
- Wilhelm Roepke’s Humane Economics
Source: Law and Liberty
by Ralph Ancil“Roepke was born near Hanover, Germany, in 1899. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1966. After serving in World War I, he attended the University of Marburg and graduated in 1921, and later became one of the youngest professors in Germany; he served on the Brauns Commission of the Brüning administration to propose policies to deal with the growing unemployment crisis during the early days of the Great Depression. He actively opposed the National Socialists, and when Hitler was inaugurated as chancellor in January 1933, he left Germany, heading first for the Netherlands, and then finally to the University of Istanbul.” (08/25/26)
- Trump says he’s “the affordability president.” Sure he is.
Source: Washington Post
by Jim Geraghty“Don’t worry, America. As you lament the high cost of living, the president is here to protect you from the menace of … imported goods from Canada that he has decided are too cheap. … The self-described ‘affordability president’ keeps coming up with new ways to make goods more expensive.” (08/25/26)
- WHO’s High-Price Pandemic Plan
Source: Brownstone Institute
by David Bell & Ramesh Thakur“The recent release of Anthony Fauci’s diaries, followed by his refusal to answer questions in an appearance before a US Senate committee by invoking the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 111 times, highlighted a stark divide in how the Covid pandemic was handled by public health authorities. … their private contemporaneous conversations confirm that even the top scientists were making decisions based on scientific uncertainty. Consequently, one of the key legacies of the public-private gap is growing distrust of official claims. That scepticism should extend to the future pandemic agenda. We rely on the World Health Organisation to coordinate among countries to prevent scourges such as pandemics reaching our shores, or at least mitigate their effects. In doing so, we must defer to an army of international bureaucrats who work in such institutions. A deference that relies on trust.” (08/25/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/whos-high-price-pandemic-plan/
- The $40 Trillion Debt, Oh My!
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker“I have never been a deficit hawk, and I’m not about to change my religious affiliation now. But whatever we think of debt and deficits, there is one point that should be very clear: it has been run up almost entirely due to Republican tax cuts and their inept management of the economy. Every Democratic president of the last half century has left with a deficit that was lower, measured as a share of GDP, than the one they came in with, except Obama, who left it unchanged. By contrast, every Republican president has left with a considerably higher deficit than what they inherited.” [editor’s note: There have been no “tax cuts,” Republican or otherwise. If spending isn’t going down, taxes aren’t going down. Debt is just deferred payment of taxes – TLK] (08/25/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/24/the-40-trillion-debt-oh-my/
- Brasília Makes Friends with Beijing
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott“On a Sunday night in late July, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and China’s Xi Jinping spoke for more than an hour. It was cordial and faintly triumphant, with the two governments announcing their intention to accelerate a long-stalled China–Mercosur trade agreement. Alongside this, there are plans to deepen cooperation on satellites and critical-minerals processing, and waive short-stay visa requirements. This marks a serious change for Brazil.” (08/25/26)
https://fee.org/articles/brasilia-makes-friends-with-beijing/
- White Lib Female Reaction to Lindsay Clancy Case Has Justified the Salem Witch Trials
Source: Town Hall
by Matt Vespa“The reactions to the Lindsay Clancy case have been appalling: where do people get the idea that she’s innocent, or worse, that she’s not guilty of her actions? The white wine brigade of white, leftist, suburban moms, who are outright morons, is back and worse than ever. The numerous posts from women saying they can relate to Clancy are disgusting, with some posts making me want to call child services because they’re all gushing over a child killer. Is there sharia law, but only for white liberal women? If not, we should make one, since that would codify their shutting up for all eternity, seeking permission to speak and leave the house. They should, if child killing is now an acceptable event for this unholy spawn of fetal alcohol syndrome.” (08/25/26)
- A MAGA plot to keep power in Congress if they lose the election?
Source: The Hill
by James D Zirin“Democrats are widely expected to win control of the House in November’s election. The Senate remains a tossup. But there is a nagging suspicion that Trump will somehow pervert the will of the people to ensure that Republicans retain their majority in the House and somehow steal the election. … Trump will delegitimize eligible voters. He will scare them away from the polls by posting federal agents at their voting places or discouraging them by disparaging mail-in ballots. But here’s the crusher: If the outcome is close, his minions can refuse to seat elected Democrats by reason of a yawning loophole in how congressional elections are administered.” (08/25/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/6047610-house-election-loophole-risk/
- The madness of Trump’s Canada trade war
Source: UnHerd
by Michael Lind“The greatest threat today to American manufacturing and global exports comes from China. The People’s Republic has far surpassed the United States in industrial output and competes with Washington in a Cold War II spanning many fronts, including trade, technology, military development, and proxy wars in Ukraine and elsewhere. And that’s not to mention a new superpower space race. Why, then, is the Trump administration appeasing China on trade, while picking fights with countries like Canada that are friends and allies of the United States?” [editor’s note: The greatest threat today — as always — to American manufacturing and global exports comes from the US government. Anything other than complete unilateral free trade is a blow to America prosperity – TLK] (08/25/26)
- Ted Cruz Is an Opportunistic Chameleon
Source: The American Conservative
by Jack Hunter“Today, loudly and proudly, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a staunch supporter of the Iran War, the state of Israel, and U.S.-led regime change in other countries; he is outspoken against what he sees as rising antisemitism in America, particularly on the right. When he opposed a potential U.S.–Iran peace deal in June, the Washington Examiner reported that ‘Cruz, considered a possible 2028 presidential candidate’ was ‘positioning himself as more hawkish than the White House.’ … Cruz is now clearly aiming to be the most pro-war, pro-Israel, and thoroughly neoconservative Republican presidential candidate. A decade ago, he was aiming to be something else.” (08/25/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ted-cruz-is-an-opportunistic-chameleon/
- America Can’t Outgrow $40 Trillion in Debt
Source: The Daily Economy
by Peter C Earle“Stabilizing the federal debt through growth alone would require 7.3 percent annual real GDP growth. Nothing in our history suggests that’s remotely plausible.” (08/25/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/america-cant-outgrow-40-trillion-in-debt/
- Turns out having nukes provided the US very little leverage
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Sina Azodi“For decades, the United States treated the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon as an intolerable threat. Yet when Washington and Tehran went to war twice in roughly a year, America’s own nuclear arsenal provided remarkably little leverage. … In neither war did America’s overwhelming nuclear superiority prevent Iranian retaliation or compel Tehran to capitulate. The paradox is striking: the weapon the U.S. had long insisted Iran must never possess proved largely incapable of shaping Tehran’s calculations, or determining the course of a war of choice that has consumed Trump’s presidency.” (08/25/26)
- Don’t Let The Values Of This Dystopian Society Shape How You Live Your Life
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“I understand what you’re saying, but that’s mostly just head noise that gets indoctrinated into us by the unhealthy society we live in. Life isn’t about racking up a bunch of accomplishments or hitting certain milestones, it’s about living. Literally physically being alive, and making sure you fully live it. When I say ‘fully live’ your life, I don’t mean having a bunch of exciting experiences like going skydiving or running with the bulls, and I don’t mean ticking a bunch of boxes like getting married and having kids. I mean actually being present for it. Having your attention in what’s really going on instead of in a bunch of made-up thought fluff in your head. And that actually gets a lot easier to do once you let go of the notion that you’re doing life wrong and that your story isn’t unfolding correctly.” (08/25/26)
- Executive Overreach at the Post Office: The Battle Over Mail-In Ballots
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey“It appears the executive branch seeks to use the USPS, a government-protected federal monopoly, to circumvent judicial rulings and override constitutional federalism. The new USPS rule gives states 60 days before the November general election to notify USPS if they intend to submit a list of eligible voters based on citizenship data. Only then will USPS send mail-in or absentee ballots to the states’ respective residents. It is clear President Trump and his administration have zero respect for the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court is currently reviewing a lawsuit from a California-led coalition of states, and without a ruling in their favor, the USPS cannot enact these new rules for the November midterm elections. Using the USPS to implement the same restrictions through a regulatory backdoor undermines the separation of powers as well as the rule of law.” (08/25/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/executive-overreach-at-the-post-office
- Hasan Piker’s Charlie Kirk hatefest a new low, and Democrats descend along with him
Source: New York Post
by Daniel McCarthy“Hasan Piker is deeply envious of Charlie Kirk. The hard-left influencer debated Kirk in 2017 and was set to do so again before Kirk was murdered last year. Yet now Piker is going around mocking Kirk’s assassination — leading a crowd last weekend, during his live podcast tour, in a sarcastic singalong of an AI-generated song called ‘We Are Charlie Kirk’: ‘We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame / We’ll fight for the Gospel, we’ll honor his name’, Piker sang off-key, the crowd howling along, while the celebrity socialist’s co-hosts guffawed and waved their arms in the air. This wasn’t satirizing a political opponent — Kirk has been dead nearly a year. It’s because Piker knows his audience, and they’re not looking for thoughtful politics: They want a hatefest.” (08/25/26)
- An American Soldier in the Persian Gulf Sent Me a Picture. It Went Viral.
Source: Antiwar.com
by Trita Parsi“One of the important characteristics of Israel and Donald Trump’s war on Iran was that it never had the support of the American people. When George Bush launched his illegal invasion of Iraq, support stood strong at 72%. As the war turned into a debacle, that support waned. By contrast, the Iran war had the support of only 27% of the American public at the outset. It took four years for support for the Iraq war to fall to the low levels of support the Iran war enjoyed from the beginning. But an untold story is the apparent opposition – though the exact numbers remain unknown—within the ranks of the US military. I am not talking about frustration, as evidenced by complaints about living standards on the USS Abraham Lincoln, but actual opposition.” (08/25/26)
- This YouTuber Got Kicked Out of the Flock Convention. So He Ran His Own Surveillance.
Source: Reason
by Matthew Petti“The surveillance contractor Flock Safety argues that police customers don’t need a warrant to track drivers with its automated license plate reading cameras because drivers have ‘no reasonable expectation of privacy’ on public roads. So YouTube host Benn Jordan applied the same logic back on Flock. He sat outside Flock’s recent police convention in Atlanta with radio equipment and a drone, which he used to unmask attendees and even listen to microphones inside the convention hall. ‘Flock values their privacy. Oh well,’ Jordan wrote in the title of his video on the convention.” (08/24/26)
- Were the Bombs of August 1945 “Demonic”
Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson“Every August, debate renews over both the wisdom and the morality of dropping the two American atomic bombs, 81 years ago, on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). This August has been no exception. As ever, many critics have faulted the United States for the bombings: two gruesome blasts—aimed at dual-use military and industrial targets in both cities—that may have caused some 100,000–120,000 immediate deaths among combatants and civilians. And not all these critics are on the Left. Two years ago, podcaster Tucker Carlson blasted the Truman administration’s decision, alleging that the atomic bomb was not the result of decades of sophisticated nuclear physics research or the dividend of a two-billion-dollar Manhattan Project investment to rapidly develop an atomic weapon in a race to beat the Axis powers’ nuclear programs before they themselves developed such existential weapons.” (08/25/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/25/were-the-bombs-of-august-1945-demonic/
- Do Humanoid Robots Make Sense?
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“Musk is building them. The Chinese are building and selling them. Why? The first answer that occurred to me is that if we end up with robots neither much abler than humans nor much less able we will want the option of employing a mixed workforce, being able to have humans and robots substitute for each other. That is easier if they are about the same size and shape.” (08/24/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/do-humanoid-robots-make-sense
- Rothbard vs. the Conservatives on the American and French Revolutions
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken“Writing in the 1960s, Rothbard was addressing what was then a common claim among conservatives about the revolution: that it was a conservative, restrained, and almost gentlemanly revolution that sought only to preserve and restore what had already been established. … Rothbard understood that this characterization of the revolution served a modern-day political purpose: to manufacture support for the status quo and to deny any possible moral legitimacy to any new revolutionary political movements that might arise. … in the conservative schema, the American revolution is to be contrasted with the French Revolution, which is portrayed as a more typical revolution, and an illustration of how revolutions are too dangerous to risk at any time.” (08/24/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/rothbard-vs-conservatives-american-and-french-revolutions
- That Time When “Democratic Socialists” Praised a Communist Dictator
Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye“Illiberalism isn’t limited to the right. As Republicans ramp up their attacks on the DSA—with Trump and other senior Republicans indiscriminately branding democratic socialists and Democrats as communists—the organization practically volunteered to become Exhibit A. On what would have been Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday, the DSA issued a glowing statement describing the late Cuban dictator as a ‘stalwart symbol of anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination.’ Castro led the revolution that overthrew Fulgencio Batista’s brutal and corrupt dictatorship in 1959. He then replaced it with a brutal communist dictatorship of his own: a one-party state that imprisoned political opponents, suppressed independent journalism, prohibited meaningful elections, and punished virtually every form of dissent.” (08/24/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/that-time-when-democratic-socialists
- How Trump Declared Economic War on His Own People
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen“Having failed at and then become bored with a shooting war, Donald Trump is returning to what really gets him up in the morning: an economic war. An ‘economic D-Day’ for Iran was announced at around the same time as retaliatory trade measures against Canada, a demonstration of the fact that to Trump, there’s no functional difference between tariffs and economic sanctions. I’ve seen some commentators discuss this as a more humanitarian way to handle Iran, as if starving a country’s citizens is somehow preferable to bombing them. But the combination with Canada, as my colleague Bob Kuttner went over yesterday, reveals that this is just bullying with different tools: a spreadsheet instead of a surface-to-air missile. The nagging problem for any would-be emperor short of Nero is that the ungrateful plebes don’t like the world being created.” (08/25/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/08/25/trump-economic-war-iran-war-canada-prices-oil-gasoline/
- Post-9/11 Fear Grew the Surveillance State — Still Growing 25 Years Later
Source: Independent Institute
by Abigail R Hall“Just as every baby boomer knows exactly where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, people my age can tell you precisely what they were doing just after 9 a.m. on 9/11. I was in seventh grade music class. In other classrooms, my friends watched people jump out of buildings. My mom picked me up early from school, and I distinctly remember that every television channel had been overtaken by news coverage. I watched the twin towers collapse over and over again for what felt like days. … The U.S. government responded in many ways that either were largely kept secret from the public or are so integrated into daily life that we no longer recognize them as what they are: marked expansions of government that have weakened constraints on government and eroded our liberties.” (08/24/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/24/post-9-11-fear-surveillance/
- Not So Obvious, Not So Simple
Source: Liberalism.org
by Matt Zwolinski“Economic planners can’t obtain the knowledge they would need. Prices carry information that no committee could produce. Attempts to impose a uniform design on a spontaneous order tend to destroy the very thing they were trying to improve. But then we turn to politics, and many of us start acting like engineers. Rothbard is the clearest case. About markets he was a thoroughgoing Austrian, insisting that no mind could assemble the knowledge that prices convey. When the subject turned to rights, though, he proceeded almost entirely by deduction, deriving an entire legal and political order from self-ownership and homesteading. … The same thinker who found the market unknowable found the just constitution derivable, as though a system for restraining violence, settling disputes, and determining who owns what were somehow less demanding than the coordination of a grain market, rather than more.” (08/24/26)
- ICE Wants Our Emails
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andrew P Napolitano“When a government agency comes to an internet service provider demanding information about Americans because of what they have said on social media, the provider should discard the demand, close the door or hang up the phone. The government is not entitled to rummage through the political opinions, associations, criticisms and angry rhetoric of anyone merely because a government official finds those opinions offensive, threatening to an agency’s reputation or inconvenient to its mission. Recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dramatically expanded its monitoring of social media platforms and has issued administrative subpoenas seeking information identifying users whose posts have criticized ICE. The reported investigations have included Americans and aliens who have not been charged with crimes.” (08/24/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2026/08/23/ice-wants-our-emails
- One Bad Week
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul“It took around two hundred years for US government debt to reach one trillion dollars. By contrast, in less than half a year a trillion was added to bring the debt total to the 40 trillion dollars it reached last week. According to the Peterson Foundation, US government debt is on a path to reach 50 trillion dollars within the next six years. Despite promising to reduce government spending in all three of his presidential campaigns, President Trump, with the assistance of congressional Republicans and Democrats, has continued to grow the government debt.” (08/24/26)
- Libertarianism Against Cultural Conservatism: A Refresher
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan“Alas, thoughtful apostasy is vanishingly rare. Not only do most humans dogmatically stick to whatever Big Picture views they embraced when they were 15-25 years old. A large majority of humans who do apostatize do so negligently. Instead of pinpointing subtle inconsistencies in their initial view, they emote. If they even bother to explain their prior intellectual errors, they attack a straw man version of what they used to think, using arguments that they previously would have dismissed as unfair and obtuse. … In recent years, I’ve had the same experience with libertarians becoming culturally conservative. While immigration is almost always the wedge issue, once libertarians turn against immigration, they commonly move on to a bunch of other culturally conservative views. And once again, the more I listen to them, the more I wonder why they changed their minds.” (08/24/26)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/libertarianism-against-cultural-conservatism
- One in Five Americans Still Need Government Permission To Work
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“Last week, an article in Governing noted that despite years of reform efforts, roughly one in five jobs in the United States requires government permission in the form of occupational licensing. In a world that is more potentially mobile and flexible than ever, licensing requirements can keep people fixed in place or pose high barriers to entering new trades and professions. The Archbridge Institute’s 2026 State Occupational Licensing Index reveals which states are most burdensome, and which make it relatively easy to earn a living.” (08/24/26)
https://reason.com/2026/08/24/1-in-5-americans-still-need-government-permission-to-work/
- How Would a Jason Arday Scandal Play Out Here?
Source: Town Hall
by Stephen L Miller“Jason Arday was an academic wunderkind and British media darling. When he was hired at Cambridge University in March 2023 as the youngest (and black) professor of Sociology of Education, it was the height of global wokeness. He was greeted with adoring media segment after segment in British media, and even Good Morning America did a profile. Arday’s personal life story of struggles and overcoming them was almost too good, because for the most part, it was. … Cambridge University opened an investigation on August 5 into Arday, after a thorough article examining Arday was published at The Guardian. On August 14, Arday was found dead at his residence and is believed to be a suicide, pending an ongoing investigation.” (08/24/26)
- This Michigan city threatened critics over “cyberbullying.” Now it’s hiding the evidence.
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Carrie Robison“When government officials threaten to sue and prosecute their constituents over speech, the public should get to see the evidence. Earlier this year, the City of Manton, Michigan, passed a vague resolution condemning what it alleged was ‘a deliberate, ongoing, and escalating campaign of cyberbullying, online harassment, and personal attacks directed at City Commissioners.’ Those so-called attacks included social media posts that allegedly contained ‘deliberate falsehoods’ or threats, or targeted commissioners in ‘an offensive personal manner.’ … It further stated the commission may direct the city attorney to explore legal remedies, including cease-and-desist letters, referring individuals to the county prosecutor for investigation, or bringing civil lawsuits. What were the social media posts that led commissioners to pass the resolution? We don’t know, because the city refuses to say, even after FIRE filed a public records request.” (08/24/26)
- The Nazi Had a Point
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders“An important thinker was right about the friend-enemy distinction. A liberalism that can survive the twenty-first century must integrate some of his insights.” (08/24/26)
- A Teachers’ Union Hits the Wrong Target
Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup“The California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) is the largest teachers-only public pension system in the country, with more than $400 billion in assets under management. As of December 31, 2024, CalSTRS directly held three-quarters of a million shares of Target Corporation, worth more than $100 million. If one were to add in the Target holdings of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (the second and third-largest teachers-only plans in the country, respectively), then the total value of shares owned would jump by another $60-plus million. Add in the remaining state teacher retirement systems, plus the city systems of Chicago, Denver, Kansas City (Missouri), New York City, St. Louis, and St. Paul, and the total value of Target shares directly held by teacher pensions is well into the multiple hundreds of millions, at the very least.” (08/24/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/24/a-teachers-union-hits-the-wrong-target/
- Vice Cannot Build Virtue
Source: The Dispatch
by Nathan Beacom“Are there two different moralities for public and private life? For centuries, the mainstream answer in the Western tradition was no. For Aristotle, the Stoics, Cicero, Boethius, and the Scholastics, it was natural to think that those who held authority in a political community should have exceptional virtue. To be virtuous meant not just achieving good outcomes, but achieving them in the right way and for the right reasons. But later, a different answer emerged from the pen of Niccolò Machiavelli. The Italian diplomat reinvented virtue, not as a nobility of soul expressed in justice, prudence, and self-control, but as the ability to win, hold, and exercise power. To do this well, he wrote, the leader must have a flexible disposition and be willing to do evil in service of the state.” (08/24/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/machiavelli-aristotle-virtue-vice-republic/
- “This is My Place of Business”: How Cakes and Coffee Continue to be Groundzero in an Age of Rage
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“There is a crushing irony for some who supported efforts to force businesses to prepare products from cakes to websites despite religious and political objections. In these cases, the owners were refusing to offer the same services (not expressive products) that they offer other customers. ‘This is my place of business.’ Those words from Jim Sheehan, owner of the Wydaho Roasters coffee shop in Driggs, Idaho, have sparked the latest controversy over the right of businesses to refuse service on the basis of religious or political views. Sheehan has drawn national attention after throwing out a group of pro-life teenagers, calling them the equivalent of a Ku Klux Klan meeting in his shop. Sheehan clearly caters to those who want their lattes with an added shot of rage. However, this and a number of other cases have exposed the hypocrisy of many regarding the service businesses must provide customers with opposing views.” (08/24/26)
- Heading toward the Cliff
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“The American people are complaining about affordability. The prices of groceries, automobiles, movies, clothes, gasoline, rent, mortgage payments, and just about everything else are soaring. Many Americans are having a very difficult time making ends meet. So what are they doing? They are calling on their federal officials to do something to solve the problem. In the process, though, Americans decline to confront an important point: the affordability problem is rooted in the systems that the American people have bought into existence and to which they remain irrevocably committed. The affordability problem means that people don’t have enough money to pay for things they wish to buy. Their money just doesn’t go as far as it used to go. There are various reasons for this phenomenon.” (08/24/26)
- Trump Watch, 08/25/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The Evil of Economic War on Iran.” (08/25/26)
https://www.fff.org/freedom-in-motion/video/trump-watch-the-evil-of-economic-war-on-iran/
- Politics Politics Politics, 08/25/26
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Is Darlene Graham Already Done in South Carolina? US Hackers vs. Foreign Gangs (with Eric Geller).” (08/25/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/is-darlene-graham-already-done-in
- Tim Shorrock on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Scott brings Tim Shorrock back on the show to dig into the latest developments between Trump and the leaders of both South Korea and North Korea.” (08/25/26)
- Capital Record, episode 317
Source: National Review
“Discovered, Not Imposed: Bond Yields and Government Intervention.” (08/25/26)
- The Dispatch Podcast, 08/25/26
Source: The Dispatch
“How The U.S. Racked Up Its $40 Trillion Debt.” (08/25/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/how-the-u-s-racked-up-its-40-trillion-debt/
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 08/25/26
Source: The New Republic
“Krugman: Trump Just Revealed Extraordinary Contempt for MAGA Voters.” (08/25/26)
- Cato Podcast, 08/25/26
Source: Cato Institute
“Heller’s Sequel Has a New Weapon.” (08/25/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/hellers-sequel-has-new-weapon
- Advisory Opinions, 08/25/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Civility vs. Collegiality | Interview: Judges Tom Griffith and David Tatel.” (08/25/26)
- The Kyle Anzalone Show, 08/24/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“DESTROYING The Washington Post’s War Propaganda.” (08/24/26)
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 479
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Don Kissick on running for Governor of Ohio and silly lawsuits over trademarks.” (08/24/26)
- Freedom Works with Paul Molloy, 08/24/26
Source: Freedom Works
“Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center ‘National Debt Hits $40 Trillion.'” (08/24/26)
https://internetradiopros.com/freedomworks/?name=2026-08-25_zfw0081212026.mp3
- Reason Roundtable, 08/24/26
Source: Reason
“How Did America Get $40 Trillion in Debt?” (08/24/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/08/24/how-did-america-get-40-trillion-in-debt/
- Rising, 08/24/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on the sudden rise of opposition to data center construction on both the left and right.” (08/24/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 08/24/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“As Americans Suffer, Trump Picks A Senseless Fight With Canada.” (08/24/26)
- Trump’s Iran War: America’s Biggest Foreign Policy Failure?
Source: The Realist Review
“TRR editor James W. Carden talks with the scholar Lasha Kasradze.” (08/24/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/podcast-trumps-iran-war-americas
- The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 08/24/26
Source: The Dispatch
“‘The One True Libertarian’ | Interview: Jesse Walker.” (08/24/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/the-one-true-libertarian-interview-jesse-walker/
- EconTalk, 08/24/26
Source: EconTalk
“Are We Alone? Cosmic Loneliness and the Longing to Believe (with Adam Kirsch).” (08/24/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/are-we-alone-cosmic-loneliness-and-the-longing-to-believe-with-adam-kirsch/
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 08/24/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump’s Fury over Natalie Harp Mess Worsens as Leaks Grow More Damning.” (08/24/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/214616/trump-fury-natalie-harp-mess-worsens-leaks-grow-damning
- Charles Goyette on The Kyle Anzalone Show
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Was Donald Trump Mousetrapped By Netanyahu?” (08/24/26)
- Bulwark Takes, 08/23/26
Source: The Bulwark
“Trump Blows Up His Own Trade Deal With Canada.” (08/23/26)